Tuesday, April 11, 2006

A very interesting story...

I have such an interesting story to tell!

While reading one of my favorite websites, a reference was made to something called "The Oak Island Money Pit". In a nutshell, this is an island near Colchester, Nova Scotia, where back in the late 18th century some boys found a man-made shaft, and started digging. Since there are various layers of oak trees and man-made materials, it's been believed that a treasure is underneath, and there have been many attempts over the years to try and dig down to it - bits of gold and parchment have been recovered in later digs with exploratory bores, which has only fueled the interest in the site. However, it's an amazing feat of engineering, as they have discovered that the pit has booby traps at various levels, and there are shafts that flood the main pit whenever they get down to a certain level. Various attempts to excavate have been given up after wasting tons of money. They've made more progress every time, but whenever they think they're about to finally get something, the pit floods!

All of this is very interesting, but what caught my eye was the fact that when the 3 boys who found the site came back to do a serious dig 9 years later, their partner was a man named Simeon Lynds - of course the last name caught my eye, as well as the fact that this was in Nova Scotia. This man IS my cousin - I checked the main Lynds genealogy website for connections, and he is the brother of my great-great-great-great grandfather, John Bunker Lynds! Also, in a later dig, his brother David replaced him as a partner.

The Oak Island website is really well done - has all the stories of the various digs and what they've found, as well as a page full of various theories as to who buried the treasure in the first place, and how. Those who have read "The DaVinci Code" or seen the movie "National Treasure" and have heard the various stories about Masons, the Knights Templar, etc., will find various references to them in to some of the more romantic theories for the pit. There are even claims that part of the gold taken from the temple in Jerusalem when it was sacked by Rome in 70 AD has ended up there.